Munich Startup: Who are you and what do you do? Please briefly introduce yourself and your services!
Gymshare: We're Flo and Björn. Björn is 31 years old and holds a Bachelor of Engineering, Flo is 30 and holds a Bachelor of Sports Management. We're both the founders of Gymshare and want to change the future of sports by combining sharing with sport. To achieve this, we're building the first marketplace where you can find, book, rent, and, above all, share everything you need for your individual sports experience. It's essentially the "AirBnB of sports." A platform where you can rent a private gym, borrow a racing bike or surfboard, or find the right new trainer for your next fitness challenge.
Gymshare was actually created out of self-interest
Gymshare was actually born out of self-interest. Flo is a former professional athlete who subsequently became self-employed as a coach. As a coach, he is always looking for sports venues that he can easily and flexibly rent with his clients, and has thus built two of his own sports venues in Munich: a private basketball court and a personal training studio. Both locations face the same recurring problem: outside of normal business hours, the spaces are often empty and unused. This is how the idea was born to rent them out flexibly and easily, whether to other trainers, private individuals, for workshops, or even groups of friends. It's essentially a platform like Airbnb – but for sports venues.
We've taken this idea a step further, because almost everyone has exercise equipment at home. This can quickly become expensive, but then sits unused for most of the day. With Gymshare, anyone can now share their exercise equipment with a community of like-minded athletes and borrow equipment they don't have when they need it.
Use our sports resources more sustainably
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Gymshare: There are countless startups in the sports sector, some with similar concepts. However, they all specialize in a small niche, such as bike or ski rental. However, we view sports more holistically and much more in our online world. Each of us is a kind of multi-sport athlete these days, and we urgently need to use our sports resources more sustainably. Getting started simply has to be easier.
Munich Startup: What has been your biggest challenge so far?
Gymshare: First, we had to present and implement the complexity of our idea and our ambitions as simply as possible. Now we have a functional online MVP that we can work with, and it's slowly filling up with offers.
Our next big or even crucial challenge, as so often, is to reach the right people and bring them to us so that we can make sport more sustainable together.
Munich Startup: How is business going?
Gymshare: With our MVP, we're currently focusing primarily on Munich and the surrounding area, and most of our offerings are from this area. We've already secured over 200 sharing offers for Gymshare, and we're constantly growing.
Munich Startup: What does Munich mean to you?
Gymshare: Flo was born and raised in Munich. Even when he was traveling for university or for his sports career, Munich was always his home base. Björn came here to study and has since grown to love the city.
Convince the Munich residents of the concept
Conveniently, the city offers a very interesting audience for our idea, and we're convinced that if we can convince Munich residents of our concept, Gymshare can establish itself everywhere. The city's startup scene is incredibly strong, and the exchange and camaraderie among people is always a lot of fun. Even if the bullshit bingo unfortunately sometimes gets out of hand.
And that's why I'd like to answer the next question right here. If we manage to conquer Munich and solidify our use case, then, as the saying goes: "To the moon" with Gymshare.
Munich Startup: How can your startup become the next unicorn? Or will we see you soon at Epic Fail Night?
Gymshare: Well, we hope that doesn't happen. If it does, we've certainly learned something from it and are happy to share our insights and learnings with you.
But to prevent that from happening, we'll continue to diligently build our platform. Next, we want to expand and strengthen our marketing activities and, among other things, hold our first sharing events. With the new feedback, we'll then further optimize our site and functionality and grow step by step.
Munich Startup: Quick exit or long breath?
Gymshare: We believe that you should only start a business if you have passion and enthusiasm for the topic. So, you definitely need to have staying power!
